Until We Meet Again
by AndThenWeWere
Summary: Rose misses the Doctor. The emptiness inside is eating her away, and then a miracle happens, and then two, and then opposite souls, once so far away, are brought so very close together...
1. Chapter 1

**A/N- My first Doctor Who fanfic :) Please comment and favorite/follow, it would mean everything to me!**

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><p>Rose Tyler's badly dyed hair (she hasn't bothered with it since the <em>event <em>happened) blows behind her in the soft breeze. A well-used cigarette dangles from her slightly parted lips. Her t-shirt is crumpled, her jeans are ripped and baggy, and her trainers are scuffed and worn. The black nail polish on her fingernails is cracked and chipping, and still, she manages to look beautiful.

She draws in a great breath, and slowly, she lowers her cigarette, dropping it to the ground. She stamps on it softly, almost tentatively.

She lets out a small puff of purely white smoke, and for that moment, she is only focusing on how her lungs _burn. _For that moment, the smoke provides a temporary escape from reality- is it reality? - and a journey into another world. One of many.

She closes her eyes, and her thoughts drift away from the world she lives in and into the one she cannot bring herself to forget.

"Rose," someone calls, and she turns around, her eyes finding those of her mother's, Jackie Tyler. She smiles slightly, the very movement of the muscles in her lips and chin feeling forced and foreign. She hasn't smiled much lately. At all, really.

"Coming," she replies, running a skinny hand through her hair and walking back to the house. Jackie stands in the doorway, holding the door open, a sad expression written on her face.

"You should try to give up smoking, you know-"

"Not happening."

Rose doesn't want to quit. It gets her blood and adrenaline flowing almost as much as when she had felt _alive._

"Rose, sweetheart," Jackie says slowly, closing the door behind the two of them and walking over to the kitchen, which is messy and overflowing with food. It smells like a combination of pepper and chicken and lemons.

"Yeah?"

"I was thinking….Ever since you quit your job at the shop, all you do is, well, smoke and eat and watch movies. Why don't you try something else? Get another job, start taking some classes somewhere…..Now that I've got Pete, we can afford practically anything! I hear there's a fabulous art center downtown that you would be able to take a few days a week. Would you like that, Rosie?" Jackie asks, her voice brimming with hope and excitement. Rose, meanwhile, throws herself down on the sofa and flicks on the large TV.

"I don't like art, Mum," she explains, grabbing her hoodie and slipping it on over her head, stuffing her hands into the pockets.

"Then take some dance! I always thought you'd be a fabulous ballerina-"

"_No."_

The word is stern and full of warning. Rose sounds exasperated and tired, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

"It's been almost two years….You have to get over him at some point, Rose. You have to get a _life." _

Rose feels gutted. She had lost him; the only man she had ever truly cared about. She could never connect with him again, could never see his face again, could never hold his hand or hug him or laugh with him about something stupid with him again, because he is, and always will be, _gone._

_Gone. _It sends shivers down her spine, knowing that he's still out there. _Gone. _She had told him she loved him. _Gone. _He hadn't repeated it.

"Oh, please. Don't you talk," Rose replies, and she tries not to show the fact that she is in a hole of sadness and _want_ and _need_. She tries not to scream to her mother that her memories are _all she has, _and that they are only things that are keeping her going.

She can't put what she feels into words, so she doesn't.

"I'm going to go have another fag," she says slowly. Jackie turns the water of the sink off and turns to stare at her daughter, her daughter that felt so very foreign.

"No-"

"I can do whatever I want."

Rose walks out of the door, slamming it behind her. She jogs out to the street, not caring that her hair's a mess and she, all in all, looks partly homeless. She doesn't care, though. She never will.

She runs towards a barren park, the benches empty and practically calling her name. She sits down on one of them. The wind picks up, and it becomes a struggle to keep her blonde-ish brown tendrils out of her eyes.

"Doctor, please," she whispers, and her voice is cracked and achy and raw. Tears flow from her eyelids and down her face.

"You saved me once. Now, please, save me again…"

oOoOo

The Doctor sits down next to the console. The TARDIS is buzzing and awake, but he feels slightly dead on the inside. Like a piece of his soul is missing. And he knows exactly where it is.

His thoughts, although scattered, are centered around the same beautiful, smart, impossibly perfect face of Rose Tyler.

And that's when he hears it.

It's like a whisper, eroding his mind, and he can recognize the voice it belongs to immediately.

"_Doctor, please. You saved me once. Now, please, save me again."_


	2. Chapter 2

A/N- sorry for the short chapter xD I have a few plans, though, and hopefully they should be getting longer. Please R&R!

OoOoO

Rose Tyler is, if only slightly, back up on her feet. She's resumed her work at the store, and that's something, right? She's re-dyed her hair, and it's now blindingly blonde. She wears mascara and blush and lipstick, and she's gotten rid of the clothes she used to wear, so her new wardrobe consists of fitted jeans and nice shirts and blazers.

She smiles, she laughs, and she smokes less than a pack per week, which is _definitely _something. She's met a few friends, Martha, Amy, Clara, and Donna, and she's even started to flirt with some guy named Rory, although it's pretty obvious that he only has eyes for Amy.

It's a bit of a façade, though. But less of what it was two years ago. She still misses the Doctor impossible amounts, because he was, is, an impossible man, and once you meet him, it's _impossible_ to forget.

Rose hasn't. But she feels….Ready. As if she's moved on. There's still an achingly large hole in her heart, yet slowly, she feels it getting patched up.

OoOoO

"Rose! Get this!"

Rose was just walking out of the shop in which she worked, Thread By Thread, when she hears Martha calling her name.

"Yeah?" She replies, stopping in her tracks and adjusting her backpack.

"There's an opening! For store manager! Can you believe it?" Martha cries, her smile covering her face, her chocolate colored eyes sparkling in the setting sunlight. Rose shrugs.

"That's great! You should go for it," she replies, and she means it. Martha's a natural businesswoman. Much smarter than Rose, at least in that sort of way.

"Not for me, silly- for you! I already work double jobs, you know, the hospital, and plus, I wouldn't get it anyway. You would be perfect! You really connect with the customers," Martha encourages, and Rose rolls her eyes.

Still. She can't help but let out a small laugh at the thought. Whether it's because she thinks it's crazy or how amazing it would be to be the manager, she doesn't know.

_"__Me?"_

"Yes, you!"

"I don't know, Marth. I'd have to think about it…"

Martha continues to grin, linking her arm through Rose's and pulling out her phone and immediately beginning to talk a mile a minute.

"So my older brother, Jonathon, has this girlfriend, right-"

Martha keeps talking, but Rose isn't listening. Well, she is, but not in the way that most people would. The actual _information _is going in one ear and out the other, but she's _feeling _something. She feels the warmth of Martha's arm against hers, she can feel the blood coursing through her body, she can feel the rough fabric of her shirt rubbing against her skin, but she can feel something else, too.

Companionship. Belonging. The last time she remembers feeling this was back when she had been traveling through time and space itself.

"Rose? Are you listening?" Martha's brisk voice breaks Rose's train of thought.

"Oh, um, sorry, no. Repeat that?"

Martha laughs and says something else about her older brother's girlfriend, and occasionally Rose nods or says 'oh, yeah, I know!' or 'that's truly awful.'

Eventually, the two get to Rose's house, and Martha drops her off with a wide smile and a small wave.

"You should really consider that job, Rose."

"I think I will. Thanks, Marth."

Rose smiles as she walks inside, because maybe, _just maybe, _she was learning to forget.

She doesn't want to, though. That's the thing. The Doctor had been her life, the person who had saved her from a life of shop working (well, not really, look at where she is), and he had showed her places she would never, ever forget.

She had heard Sarah Jane tell her once that it was worth it, traveling with the Doctor, even if you ended up getting your heart broken. Or something like that.

And as the days and weeks and months and the infernal years wore on, Rose knew with all of her severed heart that _God, she couldn't, didn't want to forget, even though she had been broken in half. The Doctor was written in her stars; everywhere she looked, and she wouldn't give _anything _to forget him._

She wasn't forgetting, she finally decides. She's moving on.


	3. Chapter 3

He is losing control. His fingers, long and limber, fly over the controls, but it is to no avail. His breathing comes in ragged gasps of air, his legs feel like jelly, and a thin, cold perspiration is forming on his forehead. The TARDIS, he knows, could be taking him anywhere.

He feels his blue police box twist and lurch, and although he tries to grab onto something, _anything, _that can keep him upright, he still flies around as if he is nothing more than a rag doll.

He grapples for the controls again, although the only thing his fingers find is air. Too much air. He never knew until now that the one thing that kept him breathing, something so vital, could be so suffocating.

He hits his head against something hard and metal-like; the sharp taste of blood fills his mouth. His leg crunches underneath him with a deafening snap, and he cries out in agony. Something jabs him in the side, unnecessarily hard, and he's fairly sure that at least one of his ribs have been fractured.

As in all things, though, the TARDIS eventually comes to a stop, leaving the Doctor lying on the floor of his blue machine, his vision blurry and his body aching with his every breath. He feels like someone's thrown a sack of bricks at him.

"Well," he murmurs, closing his eyes and finding partial solace. "I hope that you've taken me somewhere fantastic."

oOoOo

Rose sits at her desk, her laptop open and in front of her, and although it's two in the morning, her eyes follow the every move that happens upon the screen.

It's not that she isn't tired. She is. But the more she had thought about it, the more she had realized that she wanted, _needed, was _that manager job, and the only thing truly holding her back were her maths skills.

So here she is, watching algebra and trig videos on some sketchy tutoring website, and wondering what it would feel like to have a normal person's job. She'd never been proud of working as a shop worker, but now, if she got this new job, then she wouldn't be afraid to say where she worked or what she did.

All her life, Rose has always been the opposite of average (not including her grades). She has been eccentric for as long as she can remember. She tried to fit in, one time, but she knew she didn't need to, because she was _Rose Tyler._ In her own way, she was perfect. Even though she did, _does,_ perfectly normal, average things, she escapes the stereotype. Because she is, and always will be, _Rose Tyler._

And then along came the Doctor, and Rose had stopped the bland life of her shop work, living at home, and doing the same dank schedule every day.

All her life, Rose has been the opposite of average. She doesn't mind. It's her non-normality that makes her who she is, and that's okay, she decides.

_If I can improve my maths, then I'll get the job. I'm an independent woman. And I most _certainly _do not need the Doctor in order to function._

OoOoO

Rose places her application in the application box the next day.

She's fairly sure that it went well. She had checked it over seemingly hundreds of times for spelling or grammar issues, and she hadn't found any, and that in itself was important.

Still.

Here she is, trying to do something exciting, when if she hadn't let go, if she had been a little stronger, maybe right now she would have been _travelling the freaking universe._

Yet here she is. Living in a place so parallel, a place so very familiar, with the only missing thing being the only person that has ever managed to make her see. _Really see. _The Doctor had shown her life on a grander, much more important scale, and she misses it with every fiber of her being.

She knows she won't get it back. The life she once had. But she can still remember it.

OoOoO

The Doctor cracks one eye open, and then the other, and then both at the same time. Blindingly bright light fills his vision as he stands up, his leg and ribcage sore and aching. He winces as he takes a step forward, a wave of nausea washing over him.

"Damn," he breathes, brushing off his crumpled suit and taking a look over the TARDIS.

"Well," he finally replies to no one but himself, "at least you're safe."

He pats the controls happily.

"So, where have we ended up?" He asks, walking over to the door of the TARDIS and placing a hand over the knob. It's warm and cool at the same time, which is strange, and as he places his cheek against the wood of the door, vibes of familiarity and love fill his senses.

He pushes it open, and right then and there, drops to the floor.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N- Rose is being really angsty and confusing because she doesn't really know _what _she wants. Please R&R!

OoOoO

The Doctor stands up, his breathing heavy and his hearts pounding in his chest.

It looks familiar, the place where the TARDIS has brought him, achingly, painfully, _perfectly _familiar, and as he pushes the door open once more, his eyes are greeted with a robin's egg blue sky dotted with zeppelins.

"Zeppelins," he mutters, taking a step outside. The air is chilly and windy, but he doesn't mind. He takes in the cars on the streets, the talking ads on the side of the road, the people walking around and talking and being, well, _human, _and he knows _exactly _where he is.

"Oh my god," he whispers, shutting the door of the TARDIS closed behind him.

"Oh my god!" He says again, although this time it's more of an exclamation, and his voice is happy and brimming with excitement.

"Out of all places," he mumbles, racing back into his police box and straight back out, sonic screwdriver in hand.

Out of all places, out of all of time itself, out of the trillions, _quadrillions _of cracks in the universe, he had fallen through the one that could take him to the only place he truly wanted to go to. Out of all coincidences, out of all tiny little chances, he and the TARDIS had done the extraordinary. He and the TARDIS had done the impossible.

Out of all places for the Doctor and his police box to end up, they had landed in the exact city, in the exact parallel universe out of endless ones, in the exact island, in the exact city, blocks away, from the very place in which Rose Tyler, _his _Rose Tyler, lives.

OoOoO

"A promotion! Sweetheart, this is fantastic! I always knew you would be a fantastic store manager!" Jackie cries, a grin set like stone upon her face. Rose laughs and twirls around in their foyer, her skirt billowing out around her.

"I know! Imagine the money!" She cries, and Jackie grabs her hand, pulling her into a hug.

"I'm so proud of you. Wait till Pete hears! Ah, he'll be almost as thrilled as me!" Jackie says into the crook of Rose's neck.

Rose smiles, and it comes easily and naturally and instinctively.

She wonders, in that moment, though, if she really wants to be the manager of the store, or if it's just a way of showing that she is functioning. _Recovering. _It all feels like a bit of a play, and least when she thinks about it, and she's just a character. Because she's happy- really, she is- but her incentives, her motives…..They're far from earning a better wage.

Still. She feels independent. She, for the first time in her life, feels confident that she doesn't need someone else to guide her along.

"Rose? Honey?"

Jackie waves a hand in front of her daughter's face.

"Yeah, mum?"

"You zoned out. Here, let's go to the kitchen, I'll start cooking dinner! Oh, we can have chicken!" Jackie exclaims, immediately getting to work on the next meal.

Rose, again, smiles, although this time it's a more of a broken one.

She knows it sounds silly, but she was almost expecting the Doctor to….Well….Return, when he saw (she knew he couldn't see her) the new job she had received.

She had thought, as usual, and tears, once again, began to form in her eyes.

That night, Rose crawls into bed, pulls out a pen and paper, and starts to write.

_Dear Doctor,_

_I miss you. I know you probably don't miss me. You've had hundreds of companions; and you will have hundreds more. _

_I told you I loved you and you didn't- or didn't get the chance to- reply, and I am shaken by that every day. You showed me worlds of beauty and greediness and heart and soul. You showed me, in your own way, the essence of humanity, and it is because of you that I have this manager job. Are you proud? Yes, I'm sure you are._

_I have moved on. I don't mean this in a bad way- oh, no, I mean it in quite the opposite. Since I know you will never come to get me, and since I know that is impossible, I have decided that the best thing I can do to try to patch the hole in my heart is to remember you and smile and think of all the fantastic times we had. You're a wonderful man, and I can only hope that you will save many more worlds in your lifetime._

_I love you and perhaps that's where the problems lie. I might get married one day, but that will be hard, considering I have met you and other men cannot reach the standard that has been set._

_But I am trying, and that's enough. I know it is. _

_Sometimes I wish for you to come back, more than anything, and sometimes I feel content and at peace with knowing that we shared amazing adventures together._

_I am learning, Doctor._

_Yours forever,_

_Rose Tyler._

She folds the letter up, slips it into an unaddressed envelope, and slides it under her pillow. Her words, in their miraculous ways, are bringing her solace, and it is the feeling of knowing that she can move on, to let go and be successful, that eventually lulls her to sleep.


End file.
